1. Technical Field
The present disclosure is related to an operation apparatus and method to command a target temperature for an air conditioning apparatus. Specifically, the air conditioner system is related to an apparatus and method that is particularly suitable for a central heating system, using a touch panel for operation.
2. Related Art
The air conditioning apparatus usually performs a cooling operation and a heating operation so that the detected temperature detected by a sensor, for example, reaches the target temperature set by the user. There are also various types of air conditioning available, however, when employing a central heating-system type air conditioner, a 24 hour operation can be achieved depending on the area. Thus, for the air conditioner apparatus, it is required that one day is divided into a plurality of periods and a target temperature is set corresponding to each period.
For this kind of temperature setting a plurality of settings are required and it is necessary to perform an individual setting for each corresponding period, in a configuration, for example, where the period and temperature is shown as a figure and a change button is provided to change each respective period and target temperature individually. Specifically, in a configuration, for example, where the temperature setting is changeable by one degree, if it is desired to change the temperature by 5 degrees then it is necessary to carry out the operation 5 times. Also, in a configuration where the period is changeable, for example, at 15 a minute interval, when it is desired to change a period by 2 hours, it is then necessary to perform the operation 8 times. Since this kind of control operation is complicated and the usability deteriorates, the Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-146271 proposes setting a target temperature by designating the position on the screen using a touch activating means.
Incidentally, when setting the target temperature for a particular period, according to the Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-146271, for example, if the time axis is in the horizontal direction, it is thus necessary to operate the cursor accurately in the horizontal direction.
However, it can also be desirable to miniaturize the operation apparatus and it is not usually possible to increase the size of the screen of the display, when considering a typical household using the apparatus. If the screen is small, in order to adjust the target temperature to the desired target temperature it can be difficult to continuously select the position on the screen precisely, and the longer the operation time is, the worse the controllability appears. If the division of the periods are different for each day, each time the settings of a period is changed it is also necessary to reset the target temperature and therefore usability deterioration becomes unavoidable.
In addition, if we consider the case where the user operating the operation apparatus is a child or a senior person, for example, it is very important that the usability is improved so that an erroneous control is avoided.